How Much Should You Pay for a Great Business Logo?

In previous posts, we’ve talked about the various prices that you may encounter for a professional logo design. In this post, we will speak of an estimate of about how much you should expect to pay that would give you a reasonably good logo. To help with this process, you can also take a look at some of the most expensive logos designs of all time.

The Importance of a Good Logo

Remember that your logo is one of the most important things that is connected to your branding so you should not go cheap in this department. However, some designers or design firms tend to charge way more than your logo is worth and some take advantage of business owners who do not know the logo design rate that they can expect.

The Cost of a Great Logo

When considering the cost of a logo, you should think about some factors:

Time it takes to create and render the logo– One of the most important factors that must be considered when designing a professional logo is to think about how long it will take to create it. Even when you don’t know it, you are paying for time, as well as expertise. Some logo designers will charge by the hour while others charge for the job. Regardless of how you are billed, make sure that you know what you are paying for the time that you are expecting it to be completed.

Quality of work– When it comes to your professional logo, quality is job one. If your final result is not high in quality, you will not be able to justify paying any amount for your logo. Make sure and find a logo design team that you can communicate with along the way so that they will understand what you want.

Expertise level of designers– It’s important to know the quality of the design that you are getting before you start. Go to the site’s portfolio collection to see the kind of work a design team does before hiring them. Then ask them if they will do customized work that best fits your business and branding needs.

Average pay of logos in your niche area– It’s a good idea to check the rates that businesses in your niche area pay for a logo, on average. This will give you a rule of thumb of what you can expect to pay. Understand though that these will only be averages and the amount that you should pay for your logo will be determined by how detailed your logo is and how much time it takes to create and render it to a final product.

Your perceived value– Perceived value is the value that you place on a product or service. You should consider how much your logo is worth to you and how well the concept of your logo helps you with your branding.

If We Had a Crystal Ball

Once you have determined the amount of detail you want, the style and concept of your business logo, and approximately how long it’s going to take to create it, you should also remember that you cannot predict the future.

BP (British Petroleum) is the example we always use that is an extreme case that proves this point. They decided to change their logo from a standard green shield with yellow lettering to an “eco-friendly” yellow sun surrounded by green leaves. The yellow that represented the sun was so bright that it hurt the viewer’s eyes. It was a beautiful logo.

Disaster in the Distance

Just like the Titanic could not see the iceberg before it was too late, what BP didn’t know and could not foresee was that, only a few months later, they would claim responsibility for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, causing mass destruction in the ocean and upsetting the ocean’s delicate balance for years to come. Now the “earth-friendly” company was the greatest enemy to the earth’s resources, and their logo became the focus of thousands of jokes.

This is a PR nightmare for a company that was hoping to improve their image by associating it with an earth-friendly logo and instead, having it backfire in a big way.

The worst part of all is that the British Petroleum company paid a whopping $211 million for the logo! What a waste of an investment. If they had only known!

The lesson to this is never to assume you know what will happen and to plan accordingly. Don’t have a logo created that could make your company look bad if something changes. Think ahead and remember that nothing is certain.

The Average Rate for Logos

That being said, you should pay the amount that you have budgeted for your logo and not a penny more. If you can only afford $100 for your logo, then try to stick to that budget. But understand that most experts agree, you should expect to pay at least $200 for a logo from start to finish.

The bottom line is that there is no set rate for a logo design. There are too many factors to consider, and they are all important.

Talk to your logo design team and ask them what their standard rate is. Then explain what you need to include in your logo. Most of them will give you a free quote on their site.

Stay within your Budget

If you cannot afford to pay $10,000 for a logo, doing so and not be to your advantage. Remember that one of the things and reasons that you are getting a new logo for your business is so that it will improve your Roi return-on-investment. If you spend too much money on your logo, you will have nothing left for marketing and other aspects of your business.

This would be foolish spending, and it’s worse and my place you in the category of British Petroleum who paid a whopping 211 million dollars for a logo that then flopped some months later when they created the worst oil spill in American history. We are not saying that your logo will be that big of a flop, but you should consider the fact that no business owner has a crystal ball.

We all wish that we can look into the future and see what is going to happen. But being in touch with reality means understanding the fact that we simply don’t know what the future holds. This is a good reminder as we are creating assets for a business such as a logo to remind us that you do not want to bet the farm on the fact that your logo will always work. That’s what British Petroleum did and they regret it to this day.

Start by looking over some of our samples of logos that we have created for our clients. Remember that these are only examples and it doesn’t mean that we cannot do something entirely different if you don’t like any of these examples.

A Quote to Remember

Earl Nightingale once said, “What someone can conceive and believe, he can achieve.” That’s what we believe too, and there is no limit to our imagination. The only limit is your budget. Visit us online today at logodesignteam.com, and we can create a professional logo that will fit your brand as well as your budget.